Med Matte

Med Matte

 

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Does anybody know what are the best brand of UTH?

Today I have bought the 10-20 gallon Zoo Med under tank heater for my baby Ball Python and it barely heats at all! I'm going to return it tomorrow but I want to know if there are any better ones out there that heats well and won't give me any problems.I'm looking at Exo-Terra heatwave heat mat but I want to get some opinions first.Anything will help!

A word of caution about heat mats...

A heat mat works like this: It takes ambient room temperature and then adjusts its temperature according to room temperature. They will get something like 20 degrees hotter than the measured room temperature. If it gets hotter, it cuts off.

The reason it feels not so hot to you is a) because you are 98 degrees yourself so you only feel things hotter than this or b) because the starting room temperature was cool and the matt is not fully heated yet. To explain this let me show how the design of these mats leads to problems.

Often tanks are not elevated above the ground, so there is very little air flow between the tank and the ground. If this is the case, the air between the tank and the ground will get hotter and hotter and hotter as the uth heats the air. The uth will, in turn, keep reading a higher and higher ambient room temp. Because of this, uths often start out feeling quite cool but then quickly become very hot after a couple days. Temps have been measured at 175-200 degrees before. Smaller mats tend to have less of a problem than larger mats because they don't heat the air as much.

So your heat mat doesn't necessarily work badly... and chances are it would work fine in certain circumstances. Possibly your tank is situated in a cool place or sitting on a cool surface (like stone/marble). I've had issues like this. The main way to control the temp is to buy a thermostat, rheostat, or dimmer switch. Dimmer switches are cheapest and can be bought at any home depot (buy the type made for incandescent lamps where you plug into the switch). This allows you to adjust your matt based on the temp you want. It's basically necessary to use thermostats with any mat you buy to make sure that you're getting the right temp.

You can try switching brands but if you don't get better results try some of the methods I said. Personally I've used the cobra heat mats and zoo med heat mats and four paws nature's heat mats. I like the four paws one best out of them all. The cobra heat mats seem to work pretty well also. The zoo med ones are the most temperamental from what I've seen. With restricted airflow they get extremely hot and can easily burn the animal (though most snakes won't touch it if it's too hot) but you also get stories where they're pretty cool as well. I've noticed significant difference when I add airflow though. But I've only used larger zoo med mats and they seem to get pretty warm even with airflow (but my room temp is around 77-78 so they may be cooler with cooler ambient temps).

By far the preferred method of uth used by reptile keepers is flexwatt heat tape. This is actually purchased and manufactured yourself (you cut it the size you want and attach wires and plugs). It's cheaper than purchasing individual mats but if you're only heating one tank you might as well just stick to one mat instead.

So if you're switching mats I'd try four paws or cobra heat mats if you can find them. Zoo meds you just have to watch very carefully because they tend to overheat very easy.

Isbana med Matte och Longbay Racing


 

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Cyfac...
Cyfac have grown in recognition in the US since our review 5 years ago, but when people pretty frequently ask me about high end custom carbon, I still need to explain to a few, where to look for examples of the company craft.